his name: Edvald Boasson Hagen

Now, whatever, really, because in July with the expectations team SKY has built up, anything less than a win will be disappointing, and that is too bad for Wiggins. I like him, he has tremendous power, made a tremendous transition to the road, its a big leap to make in the time he has.

Team SKY might believe that they have their TdF winner already, but I’d hate to say that they are saddly mistaken.

@natalie, I’m looking forward to seeing Wiggins at the ’10 Tour as well, especially since it looks like he’ll have the full backing of Sky. Remember that in ’09, he was a co-leader until well into the race, and Garmin was pursuing lots of other options (Farrar’s sprints, Millar’s late move into Barcelona). That said, I don’t think history is on his side.

@Sebatian, I did want to extend my timeline a little further back, but Greg Lemond (who progressed from 3rd, to 2nd, to 1st in consecutive years) messed it up. That also raises the thorny question of whether Hinault was really the dominant Tour rider in the 80s. The results are certainly in his favor, but he was defeated soundly by Fignon in ’84, and may or may not have pinched one from Lemond’s column in ’85.

Of course, one could just as easily argue that injury cost Hinault ’80 and ’83, and as you’ve said in the past, I assail the Badger’s legacy at my own risk.

(Incidentally, this is why I love the classics: in a one-day race, luck, chance and sheer cunning can beat superior talent.)

Anyway, I was happy to see Wiggins take a step up this year — the British like the Australians, deserve to produce a great all-around, non-track rider — and I was hoping that Wiggins would settle down to a quite winter and start methodically building on his 2009 accomplishments. Who knows, maybe that’s what he’s doing, but in the meantime he’s also serving himself up to certain snide elements in the fanbase, much like Simoni did years ago, who will be thirsty to see him crash and burn in 2010.

I think it is perfectly possible that Bradley could under-perform, and indeed highly possible that the team as a whole could be very underwhelming initially. However, that said, I am intrigued – and yeah, excited – about seeing a financially huge and mentally amibitious new team dive into things and seeing what happens.
I’m looking forward to that irrespective of how Wiggins does. His personal relationship with Dave Brailsford can’t be under-estimated though so you never know, they’ll definitely work hard at it and as I say, I’m definitely interested in seeing how it works out for all of them next year and in the long-term.